Japan’s entire space program faces a major overhaul.

12:59 am

Feeling the heat of competition: Japan’s entire space program faces a major overhaul.

In the last few decades Japan has not done very well in space when compared to other Asian countries like China and India. Thus, this overhaul. Yet, based on this article, it doesn’t seem to me that they are making the real changes they need to do to successfully compete. If anything, it sounds instead like the actions of a bureaucracy that is merely rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship, in the hope that this will somehow save it.

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Jonathan Edwards – Sunshine (Go Away Today)

6:01 pm

An evening pause:

How much does it cost, I’ll buy it.
The time is all we’ve lost, I’ll try it.
But he can’t even run his own life
I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine.

The irony of this song is that it was written during the Vietnam War as a protest against the war and the draft. Today, most of the same anti-war protesters that sung it then, now want that same government to run our lives, even though it can’t run its own.

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Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

A new research study finds that every time someone imagines the economic system of Socialism working, it does so as much as 98 percent of the time!

1:57 pm

Heh: A new research study finds that every time someone imagines socialism working, it does so, as much as 98 percent of the time!

“There’s no ambiguity about our findings,” said Dr. Halbert Thursday, “we have proved beyond a doubt: every time someone imagines the economic system of Socialism working, it does. Regardless of what time in history, too,” continued Halbert, “if someone imagined that Socialism has worked in the past, it did. If someone imagined it working currently, it does. And if a person imagined it will work in the future, it will. It’s the most amazing thing…Truly remarkable.”

The study consisted of interviewing 5000 economists and ordinary citizens around the world, from socialist and non-socialist countries alike. No matter where in the world, people realized the repeatedly attempted 200-plus-year-old social and economic system operated fairly, efficiently, and humanely nearly every time they fantasized it would. Said Dr. Halbert, “The people in North Korea we were allowed to interview were the most enthusiastic. They not only declared their economic system the best in the world, but the best ever in the solar system.”

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

The 2000th show

12:45 pm

Tonight David Livingston will air the 2000th episode of The Space Show, what has become the world’s leading media outlet for the discussion of space exploration and the aerospace industry.

The Space Show began in June 2001, and in the ensuing dozen years David has interviewed almost every single big mover in the business of space exploration. I myself have been honored to appear on his show more than thirty times, a fact for which I am deeply grateful, since there are people far more important than I in this field.

It is difficult to measure the significance to space of David Livingston’s effort during these past twelve years. When the Space Show began, SpaceShipOne had not yet flow, the X-Price had not yet been won, and the idea of private space and space tourism were considered wild and absurd ideas. Twelve years later, these ideas are now common knowledge and are likely to be main path for the human race into space. By giving a forum to supporters of commercial space, the Space Show under David’s leadership made this paradigm shift possible.

Thank you David! When the solar system is finally settled, the colonists should remember that without his important contribution their journey to get there would have been far more difficult.

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The European Union’s program to reduce carbon emissions is in disarray.

12:08 pm

The European Union’s program to reduce carbon emissions is in disarray.

The article at the link is probably one of the worst written stories in the history of journalism. It is incoherent, disorganized, and confused. Moreover, the authors are so in favor of the regulations to limit fossil fuels that they are unable to even consider any reasons which might explain why Europe’s carbon credit market is collapsing and why the EU’s legislators rejected a rescue plan to save it.

In fact, because of their biases, the authors buried the real story, which is this:

Parliamentarians on April 16 voted 334 to 315 for blocking the carbon market rescue.

“This is the first time I can remember when parliament has put economic survival and jobs ahead of green orthodoxy,” said Roger Helmer, a member of the U.K. Independence Party who has been in the parliament for 14 years and opposes emissions trading. “It marks an absolute watershed.”

The bad economy and high debt in Europe is making the idea of raising taxes and adding more restrictions on fossil fuels very unappealing to politicians.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

 

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

The Obama administration has given up trying to force a bible publisher to pay for contraceptives under Obamacare.

10:44 am

The Obama administration has given up trying to force a bible publisher to pay for contraceptives under Obamacare.

At the government’s own request, a federal appellate court Friday dismissed the Obama administration’s appeal of an order that stopped the president from enforcing the HHS birth control mandate against a Bible publisher. The administration’s retreat marks the first total appellate victory on a preliminary injunction in any abortion pill mandate case.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Tyndale House Publishers say the administration is apparently nervous about trying to defend its position that a Bible publisher is not religious enough for a religious exemption to the mandate. “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer.”

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Video of a successful test firing of Liberator, the first working 3D printed gun.

8:37 am

Video of a successful test firing of Liberator, the first working 3D printed gun.

Not surprisingly, the Democrats in Congress are rushing to outlaw this weapon, as is their typical approach to anything they don’t like: outlaw it, ban it, prohibit it, control it, restrict it.

In other related news, a news paper editor in Colorado has decided that the only fair way to debate the NRA is to send every member of the organization to prison.

No more due process in the clear-cut case of insidious terrorism. When the facts are so clearly before all Americans, for the whole world to see, why bother with this country’s odious and cumbersome system of justice? Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in their own mental squalor.

No, no, no. Not the wannabe sick kid who blew up the Boston marathon or the freak that’s mailing ricin-laced letters to the president. I’m talking about the real terrorist threat here in America: the National Rifle Association. [emphasis mine]

Our modern liberal community: Restrict freedom, dump due process, imprison your opponents.

32 comments

The Sun shows a bit of life

8:24 am

It is that time again, buckos! Yesterday NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of April 2013. As I have done every month for the past three years, I have posted this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.

For the second month in a row the Sun’s sunspot output increased. The result is that April 2013 saw the most sunspot activity in more than a year, since December 2011.

» Read more

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Pink – Try

6:01 pm

An evening pause:

Where there is desire there’s gonna be a flame.
Where there is a flame someone’s gonna get burned.
But just because you’re burned doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.
You just gotta get up and try, try, try.

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The three phonesats launched piggyback on Antares several weeks ago beamed down images of Earth that have now been released.

5:39 pm

The three phonesats launched piggyback on Antares several weeks ago beamed down images of Earth that have now been released.

The three cube-shaped satellites were launched on Sunday, April 21, 2013 atop Orbital Science Corporation’s Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia. The three satellites were all built around a standard cubesat frame about four inches (10 cm) square, with a larger, external lithium-ion battery and a radio powerful enough to reach Earth. The smartphone components not only provided cameras for snapping pictures of the Earth, but also acted as the spacecrafts’ avionics for maintaining attitude control.

In keeping with the PhoneSat’s mission’s goal of getting into space on a budget, the images were transmitted back to Earth in the form of image-data packets that were received not just by NASA’s Ames Research Center but also by amateur radio operators around the world, who volunteered their services to collect 200 of these packets.

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The Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that carrying a firearm in an open-carry state does not create reasonable suspicion of a crime.

8:29 am

The Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that merely carrying a firearm in an open-carry state does not create reasonable suspicion of a crime.

Nathaniel Black was part of a group of men in Charlotte, North Carolina who local police officers suspected might be engaged in criminal activity. In particular, Officers suspected that after seeing one of the men openly carrying a firearm – which was legal in North Carolina – that there was most likely another firearm present. When police began frisking the men one by one, Mr. Black wished to leave, but was told he was not free to leave. Officers chased Mr. Black and discovered that he possessed a firearm; it was later discovered that he was a previously convicted felon. Mr. Black was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Before the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Mr. Black moved to suppress the evidence against him. His suppression motion was denied, he entered a guilty plea preserving a right to appeal the denial of the suppression motion, and he was sentenced to fifteen (15) years imprisonment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, however, determined that the officers had improperly seized Mr. Black, suppressed the evidence against him, and vacated his sentence.

Read the whole article. Black had visibly been doing nothing wrong, merely standing on the sidewalk talking to friends. And because it is perfectly legal to openly carry a firearm in North Carolina, the court ruled that the police had not been given cause to detain him or search him. In other words, it though it might be illegal for you to be carrying the gun (as it was with Black), the mere presence of the gun does not give the police the right to suspect him of a crime.

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A solar-powered airplane landed safely in Phoenix today on its first leg of an attempt to fly across the United States.

12:17 am

A solar-powered airplane landed safely in Phoenix today on its first leg of an attempt to fly across the United States.

I totally support this effort to develop new technology, but must note that the capabilities of this solar-powered plane, as described in this article, are woefully limited. Nonetheless, I can see many applications where these liabilities will not be an issue, so all power to them. I hope they succeed.

2 comments

Private space is winning

11:50 pm

Today I attended an space industry conference here in Orange County, California, sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Unlike the Space Hackers conference which also occurred today and to which I was also invited, this was not a New Space get-together, but a standard aerospace event which included a lot of old time engineers from the big old-time companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Most of the talks today were engineering related. For example, one described in detail the engineering advantages of building ion engines and solar sails at the molecular level, nanotechnology to the max. Another talk, which I found astonishing and exciting, was an analysis of the orbital mechanics of getting to Mars. This analysis found that using constant acceleration as low as .01 G it would be possible to get to Mars in weeks, not years, and without the necessity of waiting for the perfect launch window. You could launch almost anytime. Though we don’t have engines that as yet can provide this much constant low acceleration, these numbers are not so high as to make it impossible. With some clever refinements, it might be possible to come up with propulsion systems capable of these constant Gs, and to do it in the near future. If so, it will open up the entire solar system to manned exploration very quickly. Not only will we be able to travel to the planets in a reasonable time, the constant Gs would overcome the medical problems caused by prolonged weightlessness.

It wasn’t these interesting engineering presentations that got my juices flowing however. Instead, it was presentation on public policy issues that completely surprised me and made me think the future of the American aerospace industry is really going in the right direction. This significant take-away was further reinforced by the audience’s reaction to my lecture in the evening.
» Read more

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The high peak in tornado in 2011, the most in fifty years, was quickly attributed to global warming. Eric Berger asks: How does this explain this year’s low number, the fewest in fifty years?

10:27 am

The uncertainty of science: The high peak in tornado in 2011, the most in fifty years, was quickly attributed to global warming. Eric Berger asks: How does this explain this year’s low number, the fewest in fifty years?

If you click on the first link, you will see that the global warming scientists quoted, Kevin Trenberth, Michael Mann, and Gavin Schmidt, were all involved in the climategate emails, where they came off very badly. Moreover, there have been significant questions about the work of Michael Mann himself. I also wonder if these guys will have anything to say about the dearth of tornadoes today.

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Last Saturday the space telescope Swift detected the most powerful gamma ray bursts ever detected.

7:59 pm

Last Saturday the space telescope Swift detected the most powerful gamma ray burst ever detected.

You can see the raw reports of the detection, followed up immediately by a host of other ground-based and space-based observations at this website. Click on the circulars for GRB130427A, starting with circular 14448. When this happened last Saturday I was out camping. When I got home there were dozens of circulars to look at. Based on the data here, this gamma-ray burst was relatively close for a grb, approximately 3.6 billion light years away.

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The lingering echo of Comet Shoemaker-Levy in the atmosphere of Jupiter.

7:32 pm

The lingering echo of Comet Shoemaker-Levy in the atmosphere of Jupiter.

The Herschel observations, together with heat maps provided by NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, showed the researchers that the Jovian stratosphere was 20° to 30°F (10° to 15°C) warmer than it would be if completely dry. One question is whether the stratospheric warming results from the gentle, continuous infall of interplanetary dust particles, which would be warmed by sunlight as they linger high up. Cavalié and his colleagues believe IDPs create some of the infrared emission but cannot explain it all. Further, a continuously supplied source would migrate to lower depths, yet most of the emission is too high up, at pressures less than 2 millibars. And while the amount of water is roughly constant across the southern hemisphere, the emission gradually weakens northward until it’s less than half as strong. It’s not simply that Jupiter’s bottom half is hotter — there’s just more water down there. As the researchers note, “At least 95% of the observed water comes from the SL9 comet and subsequent (photo)-chemistry in Jupiter’s stratosphere according to our models, as of today.

Taken together, they conclude, these observations offer “clear evidence that a recent comet … is the principal source of water in Jupiter. What we observe today is a remnant of the oxygen delivery by the comet at 44°S in July 1994.”

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